PHOENIX--In a
Scottsdale police station last December, a 23-year-old methamphetamine user
showed officers a new way to steal identities.

His arrest had been
unremarkable. This metropolitan area, which includes Scottsdale and Phoenix,
has the highest rate of identity theft complaints in the nation, according
to the Federal Trade Commission. Even members of the Scottsdale police force
have had their identities stolen.

But the suspect showed officers something
they had not seen before. Browsing a government Web site, he pulled up a
local divorce document listing the parties' names, addresses and bank
account numbers, along with scans of their signatures. With a common
software program and some check stationery, the document provided all he
needed to print checks in his victims' names--and it was all made available,
with some fanfare, by the county recorder's office. The site had thousands
of them. . .

According to a Federal Trade Commission
survey in 2003, about 10 million Americans--1 in 30--had their identities
stolen in the previous year, with losses to the economy of $48 billion.
Subsequent surveys, by Javelin Strategy and Research, a private research
company, found that the number of victims had declined to nine million last
year but that the losses had risen to $56.6 billion.

In Arizona, one in six adults
had their identities stolen in the last five years, about twice the
national rate, according to the Javelin survey. . .

And the county's Web site, which earned a
place in the Smithsonian's permanent research collection on information
technology innovation, has made Social Security numbers and other
information, once viewable only by visiting the county recorder's office,
accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Police officers and
prosecutors in Phoenix knew of just two cases involving Public Records, but
most victims do not know how their identities are stolen.

For local law enforcement, pursuing even
low-tech, small-time thieves is often complicated and expensive. The victim
could be in Arizona, the thief in another state and the transactions spread
all over the world. "If someone goes on the Internet and buys goods from
Bangladesh, do you call witnesses from Bangladesh?" asked Barnett Lotstein,
a special assistant county attorney.